Meagan Good Slays 2064 in ‘Minority Report’ [INTERVIEW]

Meagan Good is always winning. She’s one of those actresses who keeps a job. She’s been able to seamlessly meander between rom-coms, comedies, dramas and procedurals (on both the big and small screens) with ease and flair, and we’re here for all of it.

Her fans may have been devastated when her crime drama Deception—where she starred opposite Laz Alonso—was cancelled after one season, but let the rejoicing resume because (Maya Angelou voice) still she rises. Now Good has snagged the leading role in the first Steven Spielberg film to have a television adaptation: Minority Report.

Thirteen years since Spielberg’s futuristic sci-fi thriller hit the big screen, it’s now been reincarnated on Fox with Meagan Good hand-picked to star as Lara Vega, a cop she describes as “totally bad-ass” but vulnerable a the same time—because as the show unfolds, we find out she’s been through something traumatic.

Taking place in the year 2064, 10 years after the Minority Report film starring Tom Cruise ended, the TV version picks up after the end of PreCrime police work in Washington DC. Good’s character links with one of the three “precogs” (played by Stark Sands) who still suffers from visions of the future once used to solve crime. In this fast-paced thriller, they work together to again attempt to bust the bad guys and save the innocent before the crimes ever happen.

Considering the fact that Minority Report bases its plotlines in the metaphysical, it’s kind of freaky that Good had a vision herself that might have lead her right to her role as Detective Vega.

“It’s a blessing,” she says. “It’s something that I’m super excited about. Last year I said to myself this is exactly the thing that I wanted to do, and a year later, it manifested.”

What’s also manifested after years of drought is more Black folks on TV. If you haven’t noticed, network TV is experiencing a sort of Black renaissance. Whether it’s the Empire effect or producer Shonda Rhimes’s ratings domination, something’s finally convinced the powers in TV Land that Black and brown faces do make up the landscape most Americans see in the real world, and have finally made a noticeable effort to align the two.

Minority Report features a pleasantly diverse cast. But while Meagan is gleeful about people of color finally getting some love by the networks, she’s taking a slightly different approach when it comes to how she feels about her show’s cast. While she’s happy for the love, she’s more excited that she’s working based on her sheer talent and not the color of her skin.

“The character is colorless, and the cast—even though we are very multicultural, very diverse—we’re just living breathing characters,” says Good. “And it’s always a blessing that when people hire you, they hire you for being good at what you do and bringing what you bring to the character. I think it has been definitely an incredible year for minorities as well, and I’m blessed to be in the forefront of that. Hopefully that will just continue to manifest and just be something that we see more often. But in this particular case, it’s just exciting, because it’s us, and we were hired for doing incredible work.”

Aside from the fun things happening with the cast, there will be some equally fun and cool things happening with technology in Minority Report. Meagan Good tells us that, while learning the technical jargon might be challenging, when it comes to gadgets, the coolness factor is high.

“It’s a lot to learn: everything from how the gadgets work [to] what they’re supposed to do specifically,” she says. “Even with the hand movements, it’s literally a science and almost kind of an alphabet, what the language is. It’s just a really, really interesting world, and we’re learning everything as we go. It’s not easy, I’ll say that. But it’s been really fun. And also, to know a lot of these things are potentially going to exist in the future. You have the selfie drone, where it comes off your wrist and goes in the air—that’s actually being worked on right now! It’s really interesting.”

Selfie drones? We’ll take one of those stat!

Minority Report premieres September 21.

Crystal Shaw King is a seasoned TV, radio and online entertainment writer. She’s also a contributing editor for a social justice foundation in Los Angeles. Follow her on Twitter @crystalamberbam.

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